African American Septo/Rhinoplasty

So I’m on day 10 and WOW. I will say this journey has been mostly emotionally and mentally exhausting more so than physically.
Days 4-6 were a piece of cake. The bruising and swelling went down nicely but I had (and still do have) a slight lingering black eye on my left side.
My cast was becoming increasingly uncomfortable towards the last few days. It literally felt like my nose wanted to explode out of my cast. Luckily I had asked to have my cast removed a day early on surgery day, cause I could not take one more day with it on. I was really excited because I could see that the tip came out really cute so I was anxious to see what the Dr. did with my bridge since that was my main reason for getting the surgery.
FYI, getting my cast off was painful (stitches felt like getting your eyebrows plucked which I didn’t mind). It really did feel like my nose had exploded from my cast. Immediately the dr asked had I taken all of my meds which kind of worried me cause I hadn’t seen it in person yet. It was then that I had a full on panic attack. My bridge was so HUGE that I got nauseous and fell faint when I first saw it. I really didn’t recognize myself. The swelling on my bridge was actually protruding from my forehead. I tried not to panic because my mom thought it looked fine but to me it did not look like normal swelling. The next 1.5 days I took arnica and bromelain to try my best to get the swelling down b/c I went back to work on day 9.
I’m now on day 10 and it wasn’t until today that I actually started to see some definition in my bridge. My tip is super cute I have nothing bad to say about it, but my bridge is still pretty big and wide. I was hoping no one noticed at work but I have been asked about it from a number of people. I do see the light at the end of the tunnel I’m just hoping by at least 2 weeks the swelling will come down a lot more. So far I’m happy with my results.

Today (Day 3) has been the worst so far... yesterday I got my packing taken out and it did hurt but the medical assistant did it so fast I didn’t even get a chance to grasp the fact I was in pain. I felt really good afterward since I could breathe for the first time, but today my face is even more swollen and now I’m congested and can’t breathe as well. I’ve been icing and hopefully today I’ll be going over the hump of the worst of this experience (which really hasn’t been that bad at all).

Here are pics of my before nose. My main issue with it was it’s wideness. I have a very slight hump on my profile but it didn’t bother me as much as the view from straight on. The doctor brought in my bridge, slightly elevated my tip, and slightly brought in my nostrils so my finished look wouldn’t be too triangular looking.